The immediate crisis may have passed, but most Americans still haven’t recovered from the worst economic disaster since the Great Depression. Wealthy Americans, on the other hand, are doing better than ever. In the three years after the recession hit, economist Emmanuel Saez has calculated, the top 1 percent captured an incredible 91 percent of the nation’s income growth.

This special feature was written by a team at the Institute for Policy Studies. You can learn more about their work at inequality.org.

This latest surge in inequality has not gone unnoticed. In 2011, the Occupy movement’s “We Are the 99 Percent” rallying cry thrust our nation’s great divide onto the center stage of American politics. In 2014, an international best seller from a previously unknown French economist, Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century, sounded the alarm about the global plutocracy that will emerge if current trends continue. In 2015, Black Lives Matter activists connected the dots between police crackdowns and the local revenue shortfalls made inevitable by tax cuts for America’s wealthiest.

The climate-justice movement, meanwhile, has highlighted the fact that our dream of unfettered economic growth imperils the very future of humankind on this planet, and that global climate change is hitting the poor and people of color hardest. To save our earth in its current form, we’ll need to start thinking much more seriously about sustainability and equitable distribution.

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For the full feature articles, visit the Nation’s website at the links below:

Can only say it’s about time. This Terrorist Trio has been hiding under Uncle Sam’s skirt for way too long … For those who’ve been paying attention, these guys have been linked to numerous other killings, disappearances and acts of torture. Prats, atrocities at Colonia Dignidad, the Caravan of Death (Larios) Case, to name a few. Who else wants to see GHW Bush’s notes from Sept. 1976 going forward, while he headed up the CIA? President Ford’s daily CIA briefing papers during this period (the Letelier-Moffit Murders). Perpetrators of an act of state-sponsored terror … their role was covered up for nearly two years : http://www.amazon.com/Search-Spring-sisters-brothers-assassination/dp/1500256757

grumpy

Sounds like a great idea!
But who will state legislators get their country club memberships from if not their local utilities?
Would legislators be able to fund cost effective energy efficiency programs? Or the least effective? It will vary by state.

It is true they can do better than tax benefits to rich corporations busy destroying the world.

The rules for accelerated depreciation are wrong in industry’s favor, but is that going to be easy to fix?

Eric

Actually the money they are not paying to the government is going to ratepayers. Their effective tax rates are low but utility regulators then deduct that from the utility ratebase so utilities earn less and ratepayers pay less. Ask most utilities about bonus depreciation in private and they would prefer not to have it.